When reading national polls, keep “Biden minus 4.4 percent” in your head. For Biden to beat Trump next year, he needs a lead at least that big in national polls. That he is not close to that now — and is even running behind Trump — is the reason that Democrats are increasingly nervous.
But when the 4.4 percentage point cushion that Biden needed to win … is added to it, Biden is really trailing Trump by 6 percentage points.
When thinking of the 2024 presidential race, think of the Las Vegas beating line for a football game. Betting on a football game does not entail just picking the winner. You must also beat the betting line; in other words, your pick must win by more points or lose by less points than the posted point spread. (READ MORE from J.T. Young: The Greatest Hypocrites Are Among Us)
How Vegas bookies come up with their point spreads is hard, secret, and proprietary. Coming up with Biden’s point spread against Trump is easy.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in the popular vote 51.3 percent to 46.9 percent for a 4.4 percentage point margin. At the other end is the 2016 presidential outcome. Hillary Clinton beat Trump with 48 percent to 45.9 percent in the popular vote for a 2.1 percentage point margin.
Despite both Democrats winning the popular vote with percentage points to spare, the outcomes were very different. Biden won the White House 306-232 in electoral votes; Clinton lost the White House 232-306 in electoral votes.
What this tells us is that in Trump’s last two presidential races, the Democrat needs to run 2.1 to 4.4 percentage points ahead in the popular vote to win in the electoral vote. The question is where does a Democrat need to land in this 2.1 to 4.4 percentage point range?
The answer is: at the top of it.
Despite the seemingly large 4.4 percentage point difference, Biden’s 306-232 win in the all-important electoral vote total hinged on the outcome in six states where he won by less than three percent of their popular votes — four of them by less than two percent. If the margins in those four states had been erased, it would hardly have changed Biden’s 4.4. percent national advantage, but it would have given the White House to Trump.
So, Biden needed virtually all his popular vote margin to eek out his electoral vote win.
The reason for this big difference in the popular vote percentages is that Democrats run up big margins in big states. In 2020 in California, Biden won by over five million votes and 63.5 percent to 34.3 percent. In New York, Biden won by just under two million votes and 60.9 percent to 37.7 percent. Nationally in the popular vote, Biden beat Trump 81.3 million to 74.2 million — virtually the entire difference came from California and New York alone.
While these big states’ big margins are impressive, they have zero impact beyond delivering these two states’ electoral votes to the Democrat candidate. Put another way, a lot of Democrat votes are wasted on meaningless margins: they are inefficient. (READ MORE: Democrats Begin Scapegoating Biden)
Going back to the key 4.4 percentage point margin Biden needs and the real state of today’s race becomes clear. According to Real Clear Politics’ November 20 average of national polling, Trump leads Biden 46.6 percent to 45 percent — a 1.6 percentage point margin. But when the 4.4 percentage point cushion that Biden needed to win narrowly in 2020’s electoral vote is added to it, Biden is really trailing Trump by 6 percentage points.
This real gap is also the real reason for the White House’s recent moral victory campaign. Lacking real accomplishments and falling further behind in the real race, they are vainly trying to roll out anything that could help shave down what is a big gap between where their candidate is and where he needs to be.
So, after so many foreign policy fiascos — from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, to China’s increased bellicosity, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to cozying up to Iran, to Iran’s client Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel — we get a celebration of Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping meeting in San Francisco.
Economically, the White House celebrates the country not being in recession, federal deficits not being where they were during COVID, and inflation not being at the recent highs that this Administration stoked them to. (READ MORE: Biden’s Upside-Down Economy)
Symbolically, the Biden administration puts up twenty miles of wall to cover, not the southern border that it has left yawning, but itself. While at the same time it is pouring concrete everywhere else and calling it infrastructure.
The reason that Democrats are so nervous about Biden is not that his polling is bad, which it is, but that it is worse than it appears. And there is not a whole lot on the horizon that the White House can see making it better. Just remember what they are up against: Biden minus 4.4 percent and in 2024, what happens in Vegas will stay in Washington.
The author was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.